In an increasingly networked world, more and more traffic, such as data, voice, and video, is transmitted over public and proprietary networks. The networks use high data rates (e.g., greater than 10 gigabits per second (Gbps)) to transport greater quantities of traffic. Certain types of the networks, such as optical networks, use complex signal processing to achieve the high data rates. The complex signal processing may be performed using forward error correction (FEC) devices that use soft iterative error correction techniques to reduce a quantity of errors, within the traffic, to a level that is specified by the public and proprietary networks.
The soft iterative error correction techniques may enable a FEC device to identify least reliable positions (LRPs), corresponding to encoded bits, within an encoded word associated with the traffic. The LRPs may be used, by the FEC device, to generate candidate words (e.g., 2N candidate words, where N represents a quantity of LRPs). Increasing a quantity of LRPs may increase a quantity of errors that can be identified or corrected by the FEC device. However, increasing the quantity of LRPs, by a single LRP, may cause a doubling of the quantity of candidate words (e.g., from 16, when N=4, to 32 when N=5) to be generated for processing the same amount of traffic. The doubling of the quantity of candidate words may increase costs or processing complexity (e.g., by increasing processing steps, processing time, memory usage, processing capacity, etc.) associated with processing the traffic.